Current modifications to Google’s person interface have affected the quantity and high quality of natural web site visitors.
As an illustration, AI Overviews and the commoditized solutions Google serves immediately in search outcomes imply fewer top-of-funnel clicks attain web sites.
There are additionally fewer clicks for bottom-of-funnel key phrases as Google inserts itself within the conversion course of. For instance, if you happen to search for any product-related search, it’s seemingly you’ll see options that may usually belong on an ecommerce product class web page, like:
- Filters
- Product tiles
- Value info
- Reductions and offers
- Critiques
What’s worse, clicks on these product tiles don’t go to retailers. They open up a panel in Google with a number of sellers, together with massive marketplaces, as a substitute:

These modifications imply that as top-of-funnel and bottom-of-funnel alternatives diminish, the mid-funnel can develop into your secret search engine optimization weapon as a substitute. I’ll clarify how beneath, however first…
What makes mid-funnel advertising totally different from top-of-funnel or bottom-of-funnel?
As a fast refresher, top-of-funnel (TOFU) content material is academic in nature and fulfills an informational search intent. This content material is the furthest from a sale in a typical conversion journey.
Backside-of-funnel (BOFU) content material is the content material a person interacts with instantly earlier than a sale. It fulfills a transactional intent and usually consists of gross sales pages and product touchdown pages.
Center-of-funnel (MOFU) content material is the murky in-between.


The objectives of mid-funnel content material are to:
- Transition searchers from being problem-aware to solution-aware
- Assist searchers decide on the suitable resolution
- Enhance model consciousness by rising your model’s touchpoints with searchers
- Construct belief in your model in order that when of us are prepared to purchase, they consider you first
It’s additionally the place searchers could choose info from different people, not AI. As an illustration, within the words of Eli Schwartz:
Whereas [Google’s AI] solutions might seem on these key phrases, the person will probably nonetheless click on search outcomes as a result of these solutions won’t be satisfying sufficient.
Because of this it’s a wonderful alternative for search engine optimization. It’s the kind of content material that can’t simply be commoditized in lots of industries, particularly B2B.
6 inventive mid-funnel content material concepts and how you can discover them
When carried out nicely, MOFU content material can ship the next return on search engine optimization funding than both TOFU or BOFU content material.
Listed below are six concepts that can boost your technique and leverage alternatives most different SEOs don’t even contemplate. I’ve used all of those with nice success on consumer campaigns, particularly for B2B manufacturers in slender verticals.
1. Characteristic roundups
Roundups are a sort of listing publish. They’re generally utilized in affiliate marketing to check merchandise by totally different manufacturers for key phrases like “finest air fryers” or “finest wi-fi headphones.”
Websites like The Wirecutter use such posts as a staple of their content material methods.
Nevertheless, most affiliate websites solely deal with evaluating merchandise by totally different manufacturers, which is why such a content material is underutilized by different companies, like e-commerce and SaaS manufacturers, that don’t need to function competing merchandise of their editorial content material.
The mid-funnel alternative for e-commerce and SaaS firms is to suppose previous model vs. model comparisons and as a substitute create function vs. function or product vs. product roundups.
To search out these alternatives, seek for your principal subject or product class in Keywords Explorer after which apply a filter to incorporate phrases like:
- Concepts
- Finest
- Vs
- And
- Or
- Sorts
- Alternate options
- Comparability


Sidenote.
The precise phrases that can be related to your area of interest could differ.
Search for alternatives to check your individual merchandise or options. As an illustration, the costume retailer Fancy Costume has a listicle concentrating on the key phrase “group costume concepts,” and every thought is a product they promote.


You can too evaluate options of your resolution in opposition to one another. This will work nicely for SaaS companies. As an illustration, contemplate a key phrase like “finest cellular banking app options.”


It’s not the bottom issue rating however rankings are achievable for a banking model with some authority behind it.
That is very true once we contemplate that there’s just one publish that’s loosely optimized for “finest options” and a 403 publish rating in place three:


In both state of affairs, product vs. product or function vs. function, it’s about positioning your model as the one possibility in order that when readers develop into prepared to purchase, they select you over a competitor.
2. Resolution hijacking
One in every of my favourite MOFU content material concepts is resolution hijacking. It really works by changing people who find themselves already solution-aware… however for the fallacious resolution.
Your content material ought to affect them to favor your product as a substitute of the answer they already selected.
For instance, Freshbooks used this tactic to transform folks utilizing Excel for accounting and bookkeeping. It created many pages providing Excel-based options and templates however with calls to motion to check out their software for free.


In whole, these pages ship round 6,400 month-to-month natural visitors periods.


To do that out in your web site, search for key phrases which can be about an alternate resolution to yours however shouldn’t have a transparent buy intent (e.g., “excel bill template” if you happen to run a run accounting app). The intent bit is vital, so don’t skip it.
In the event you’re uncertain of a specific key phrase’s intent, take a look at our AI-based “Establish Intents” function. It provides you with a share breakdown of the key phrase’s dominant intents within the SERPs.


Right here’s why intent is a crucial qualifier.
Let’s contemplate Purple. It sells hybrid mattresses but in addition as soon as had the next pages for different mattress sorts on its web site:


These URLs have since been redirected however the reality stays, they wrote about stuff they don’t promote.
At first look, these pages appear to be a good instance of resolution hijacking. Nevertheless, they aim industrial intent key phrases which can be too far down the funnel.
For instance, let’s have a look at the key phrase “waterbed.” If you take a look at the SERP for it, it’s clear that Google treats this as a bottom-of-funnel key phrase. Procuring outcomes are on the very high of the display, and 92% of outcomes are focused at searchers trying to purchase waterbeds.


So, trying on the efficiency of those pages, together with the brand new ones they now redirect to, there’s a giant decline.


It’s unlikely Purple will be capable of get better this visitors for these key phrases except it begins promoting some of these mattresses.
Key takeaway: Discover key phrases for various options to what you provide. However be certain they don’t have such a robust buy intent. As a substitute, you need to see a combination of content material sorts rating, like a handful of weblog posts and a few product pages. That’s a good alternative to think about.
3. Quizzes
Quizzes are a sort of interactive content material that gives solutions or recommends options to customers primarily based on their responses to particular questions.
Not all quizzes are a part of the mid-funnel. For instance, contemplate a skincare quiz.
It’s TOFU if it focuses on figuring out your pores and skin sort. It’s MOFU if it recommends the right skincare routine in your pores and skin sort.
To search out related alternatives, observe the identical steps as above. Pop your principal subject into Key phrases Explorer, however this time filter for key phrases together with issues like:
- Quiz
- Take a look at
- What’s my…
- Discover your…
- Finder
- Really helpful
The few manufacturers that do create quizzes normally don’t know how you can optimize them for search engine optimization. For instance, the present top-ranking web page for “skincare quiz” has fewer than 100 phrases of optimized content material:


So optimizing the touchdown web page is a really fast and straightforward win in most circumstances.
As for creating the quiz itself, there are such a lot of no-code platforms, like Outgrow, that may make quiz-building a easy course of. Or you possibly can observe an infographic-style design, much like this piece from Healthline.
Both method, quizzes can entice 1000’s of tourists month-to-month and assist them determine which of your merchandise to purchase!


4. Area of interest calculators
Like quizzes, calculators are an amazing MOFU technique that may typically be created with no-code instruments. They’re an amazing angle for MOFU content material if the reply delivered by a calculator is important for serving to a searcher make a purchase order determination.
Discovering alternatives is simple, per the above course of. However this time, filter for phrases like:
- Calculate
- Calculator
- Ratio
- How a lot
- System
- Estimate
- Estimator
It’s loopy simply how underutilized this technique is, particularly by small companies or area of interest web sites.
For instance, the key phrase “neck harm settlement calculator” has all of the makings of an amazing search engine optimization alternative:


- Very low issue rating
- Only a few hyperlinks are wanted to rank
- A great deal of search quantity, particularly on cellular
- Projected improve in searches
- Visitors potential is about 6x the month-to-month search quantity
- Aaaaand the top-ranking web page is just not well-optimized for this key phrase
What a discover!
In case your calculator is useful sufficient and offers an amazing person expertise, you could not even have to create all that a lot supporting content material or construct many hyperlinks to assist it rank.
For instance, let’s take a look at this flooring calculator:


It’s easy, offers an amazing person expertise, and may be very useful since you possibly can calculate the ground house of a number of rooms in a single go.
It additionally doesn’t have a lot content material by conventional search engine optimization requirements (~100 phrases) or very many hyperlinks (solely 16) and but, it brings in over 8,500 guests a month.


A useful calculator like this will get folks one step nearer to buying, which makes it an amazing MOFU content material asset to think about. There are such a lot of untapped alternatives price trying into, even for small or area of interest companies.
5. Scorecards
Scorecards are one other sort of interactive content material designed to offer the searcher a efficiency grade.
For instance, they begin by asking questions, much like a quiz, however the purpose isn’t to supply a right away resolution. It’s to offer a rating that helps a searcher establish potential issues they could have to repair.
In different phrases, quizzes are nice for creating solution-awareness, whereas scorecards are for individuals who could first have to develop problem-awareness and be eased into discovering the suitable resolution.
Not like quizzes and calculators, which each have very apparent search patterns, there are extra nuances for locating scorecard-related key phrases. You typically can’t filter for “scorecard” or comparable. So strive issues like:
- Price my
- How good is my
- How unhealthy is my
- Checker
- Grader
Something that signifies the person desires their efficiency rated will go well with a scorecard.
For instance, contemplate a key phrase like “fee my resume”:


It’s an amazing MOFU asset for a resume-building SaaS firm or a resume companies market.
When you’ve got a PC-related ecommerce retailer, you might create a scorecard for “fee my PC” searches the place you advocate higher elements or mods to enhance the person’s present laptop.


The alternatives are proper there for the taking if you understand the place to look.
6. Different belongings
It’s clear by now that content material can take many varieties. In lots of circumstances, the answer somebody is in search of can’t be delivered in a weblog publish, social publish, or audiovisual format.
That’s the place various belongings is usually a nice resolution.
These are my favourite belongings to create for many B2B search engine optimization campaigns, particularly in the event that they’re in a small vertical with few TOFU or BOFU searches. The mid-funnel turns into very profitable in such circumstances.
For instance, you possibly can contemplate various belongings like spreadsheet templates for data staff, CAD blocks for engineers, or wiring diagrams for electricians.
There are a lot of methods to search out some of these alternatives. You can begin by filtering your key phrase listing for:
- Widespread file extensions in your trade, like .jpg, .svg, .png, .psd, or .ai for designers.
- Phrases like spreadsheet, diagram, file, or blueprint.
- Trade-specific software program like Revit for engineers, Canva for designers, and so on.
For instance, in a slender B2B vertical like private entry door manufacturing, conventional key phrase analysis strategies will not be sufficient. That is the complete listing of key phrases in regards to the product, for example:


We will additionally neglect TOFU weblog posts. Answering questions like “what’s a private entry door” that may now be dealt with by Google is commonly not definitely worth the finances.
And that’s the place inventive considering can be rewarded as a result of, on this instance, there’s a hidden goldmine of alternative for CAD blocks and design information for builders and designers.
They typically want CAD blocks for doorways and surrounding parts like partitions and home windows.


Not solely are there 1000’s of searches for stuff like this, however these are belongings a door producer in all probability already has readily available. And so they could already share them with architects of their community anyway.
So why not optimize its web site for such alternatives with the purpose of connecting to extra architects?
It’s all about fixing your viewers’s day by day frustrations and constructing a number of touchpoints with them as you achieve this. Once they’re prepared to purchase, they’ll seemingly consider you first earlier than they even flip to Google.
Key takeaways
search engine optimization alternatives have basically modified and can proceed to evolve as Google modifications its interface.
With fewer clicks going to web sites from top-of-funnel and bottom-of-funnel searches, there’s an untapped alternative for search engine optimization professionals to make use of the middle-of-the-funnel as a substitute.
However, to take action takes way more creativity and out-of-the-box considering, particularly if you happen to’re in search of alternatives your rivals haven’t but thought of!
When you’ve got any examples of mid-funnel methods which have labored wonders, be happy to share them with me on LinkedIn anytime.